12 minute read
Cultivating Sustainability
A Greener Future One Plate at a Time
Food sustainability acts as one of our guiding principles in the big picture of our world. It's about finding a balance between food security and the sustainable future of the food we consume. Picture it as a mix of smart farming practices, sharing of food resources, reducing waste and keeping nature diverse and happy. It's a way of making sure we can enjoy our meals today without creating more problems in the future. In this eco-conscious era, food sustainability is about being good stewards of the planet that sustains us.
Reducing Food Waste
Eat Seasonally
Eating "seasonally" is tuning into nature's menu and letting the seasons dictate what lands on your plate. Eating seasonally is a way to enjoy the best produce each season offers, picked at the peak of freshness and ready to enjoy.
When we eat what's in season, we use fewer resources like energy and chemicals for transport and storage. Plus, seasonal foods are usually more readily available and affordable since they're in abundance during their peak times. There’s a nutritional bonus too – fresher produce tends to pack more nutrients. Eating seasonally is a tasty, eco-friendly and healthy win-win all around.
Grow Your Own Food
Growing your own food isn't just about gardening; it's a way to take charge of what you eat while reducing your impact on the planet. By cultivating your vegetables and herbs, whether in a garden plot or containers, you're cutting down on the environmental toll of store-bought produce, which often involves extensive transportation and packaging alongside a heavier carbon footprint. See page 8 for information about square-foot gardening, a creative, eco-conscious approach to growing your own food.
Store Food Properly
One of the main tools in the fight against food waste is proper food storage. The Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio (SWACO) recently published food storage guide lists the following tips to keep your food fresh:
Store food below 40 degrees in the refrigerator.
Manage moisture to prevent spoilage and maintain the quality of fruits and vegetables. Excess moisture promotes mold growth, so don’t wash produce until ready to use.
Date labels on dairy milk and yogurt often suggest a product is no good much earlier than when the taste changes. If it looks, smells and tastes good, it most likely is.
Set appropriate humidity levels in your crisper drawers. Most fruits do best in low humidity. Strawberries and watermelons are the exception. Keep them in high humidity. Vegetables, on the other hand, stay fresher longer in the high-humidity drawer.
Consider alternative storage methods for your food like freezing or canning. Many foods can easily be frozen or canned to extend their shelf life.
Skip Plastics
Plastic food packaging has become the norm in modern-day grocery stores, but ditching plastic packaging is a game-changer for our planet. Skip placing produce in one-use plastic bags at the grocery and order meats and cheeses from the counter and ask for them to be wrapped in paper. Opt for reusable bags, beeswax cloth, glass jars or even compostable containers to store food once you get it home. It might seem like a small switch, but it's huge in the fight against plastic pollution.
Vegetable Scrap Broth
Many of us toss our vegetable scraps into the trash or garbage disposal, but there is a tasty way to use those peels, skins and ends–vegetable scrap broth. However, not all scraps are created equally and some will impart bitter flavor to your broth. Make sure to mix and match your veggie scraps and don’t go too heavy on one type of vegetable. The following list outlines the best scraps for broth and what to avoid.
Yes:
Onion skins, peels and root ends
Green parts of scallions and leeks
Fennel tops
Carrot peels, tops and ends
Corn cobs
Mushroom stems
Tomatoes: any part
Squash peels
Parsley and thyme: leaves and stems
No:
Cruciferous vegetables such as kale, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and cabbage
Beets
Eggplant
Spicy peppers
Artichokes
DIRECTIONS:
1. As you use vegetables in the kitchen, place the scraps into a gallon bag and store it in the freezer. Make sure your vegetables are washed well.
2. Once you fill the gallon bag, place the scraps into a large pot and add water to cover the scraps by ½ inch.
3. Add salt and peppercorns, to taste, and a bay leaf.
4. Bring the pot to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for about an hour.
5. Strain the broth through a fine mesh strainer lined with cheesecloth.
6. Cool and store in the refrigerator for use within five days or freeze in freezer-safe containers for up to six months.
Start a Compost Bin
Diving into the world of starting your own compost bin opens the door to an eco-friendly adventure. It's not just about tossing kitchen scraps and yard waste into a bin. It's about transforming food scraps into an amazing nutrient-packed soil booster. Whether you've got a big backyard or a tiny balcony, your compost bin is a powerhouse of recycling, turning your food and garden waste into garden gold. See page 9 for tips on starting your own compost bin and getting ready to turn your kitchen leftovers into something seriously awesome for your garden.
Donate Food
Donating wholesome food for human consumption diverts food waste from landfills and puts food on the table for families in need. Donations of nonperishable and unspoiled perishable food from homes and businesses help stock the shelves at food banks, soup kitchens, pantries and shelters.
By donating food, we’re feeding people, not landfills, supporting local communities and saving all the resources that went into producing that food, from going to waste.
See page 10 to learn more about the impact of food donations and how they help fight food insecurity in our community.
Cultivating Sustainability in Your Backyard
Square Foot Gardening: Big Impacts in Small Spaces
Have you ever heard of square-foot gardening? It's not your typical garden; it's a smart way to grow your own food without needing tons of space. Picture this: a small area split into neat squares, each one bursting with possibilities.
Square foot gardening has been practiced for more than 30 years but has seen a resurgence in popularity with the rise of younger gardeners living and gardening in smaller urban homes. The term, square foot gardening, was coined by gardener and civil engineer Mel Bartholomew in his book of the same name in 1981. The book rapidly captivated gardeners, presenting a revolutionary approach to cultivating more food within limited spaces. Its appeal extended beyond just reaping homegrown yields; it became a method to enhance health and ergonomics and address food insecurity among communities worldwide. Today, the concept has now become commonplace among new and seasoned gardeners alike.
The concept of square foot gardening is simple: produce high yields in small spaces through proper planning, companion planting and maximize every square inch of soil.
The benefits of this type of gardening include saving space, increased accessibility due to raised beds, reduced weeding and tilling, less need for tools, prevention of compacted soils and a tidy garden.
Essential Garden Tools for a Square Foot Garden
Garden gloves
Good quality bypass pruners
Korean Homi hand plow
Small folding pruning saw
Buckets or baskets for harvesting
Steps to Growing a Square Foot Garden
Choose the Right Location
Choose a full-sun location in your yard. Full-sun exposure is key to maximizing your crop yields.
Install Your Raised Beds
The most common raised bed dimension for this type of garden is a series of 4 feet by 4 feet with a height less than 8 inches. Any number of materials can be used to construct your raised bed, from old bricks to treated lumber and anything in between. Be creative and think sustainably.
Install a Weed Barrier
Place a weed barrier in the bottom of your raised bed. You can use landscape fabric, or even better, recycled cardboard boxes free of tape.
Fill Your Beds
Use a weed-free raised bed mix. To save on cost, the raised bed mix can be blended with up to 25% native soil, but you will need to be judicious about weeds.
Add Accessories
Consider adding a trellis to the edges of your raised beds to accommodate vine crops or installing drip irrigation lines that connect to your garden house for more efficient, directed watering.
Plan Your Crop Layout
As the name suggests, using a square foot by square foot grid design is the way to go. Use graph paper to help plan your beds. When planning the layout of a square foot garden bed, you’ll need to determine how many plants of each crop can comfortably fit into one square foot – that’s to say, one square of the grid. Consult plant containers and seed packets for proper space of plants within your square foot space.
Composting: A Guide to Transforming Food Waste into Garden Gold
1. Choose a Method and Location
You can choose two different methods of composting–a garden compost pile or static or tumbling composting bin. Bin-style composting is recommended for those who have a little less space to work with. It is a cleaner, and less smelly option. Situate your compost bin where it gets both sun and shade. Compost breakdown occurs more quickly in the heat of the sun but this also causes dry out. Opt for some shade to reduce the need for adding moisture. Too much shade, however, can cause moldy compost.
2. Know What to Compost
There are two broad categories of materials that you can put in your compost bin or pile–green and brown.
Green materials include fruit and vegetable scraps, loose used tea (removed from tea bags), coffee grounds, crushed eggshells, grass clippings, green plant cuttings, old flowers and many weeds.
Brown materials are things like straw, paper and cardboard, dry leaves, woody prunings and sawdust (but not from treated wood).
3. Know What to Avoid
Avoid diseased plants or toxic plants, pet droppings (other than chicken manure), meat or bones, dairy products, cooking fats, glossy papers, weeds, treated timber and large branches. Also avoid adding leaves from beech, black walnut oak, holly and horse chestnut trees.
4. Layer and Turn Over Your Material
Begin your compost bin or pile with a base of small twigs, mulch or old potting mix for aeration. Follow with layers of green and brown material, then leaves and wet paper. Adding water after each layer to keep the pile moist, but not wet, aids in breakdown. Remember to use two parts brown material to every one part green.
Turn or aerate your compost with a garden fork every week or two to allow for air exchange. Keeping your compost covered at the top will help with heat and moisture retention, which is crucial for the breakdown process.
5. Spread Your Black Gold
Compost is ready when it is a dark, rich brown color, is mostly uniform in texture and crumbles easily. This could easily take around two to three months. Use your compost to top dress garden beds to retain moisture and gently feed plants or mix them into the soil at the time of planting to condition the soil.
Fighting Food Insecurity
Nourishing Neighbors in Need
Food insecurity isn’t just about being hungry; it's about not having reliable access to nourishing food. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, food insecurity is the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, or the limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways. With the rising cost of food prices, some people might not know where their next meal will come from or if there is enough to sustain those in their household. This problem springs from various sources, like not having enough money for groceries, uneven distribution of resources or living in places with limited access to grocery stores, farmers markets and other sources of fresh food. In 2022, an estimated 44.2 million people lived in food-insecure households.
Food insecurity affects communities across the globe, and Westerville is no different. Westerville Area Resource Ministry (WARM) is currently serving 61% more clients than during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jessica Schmitt, WARM’s Director of Development and Communications, shared that the need for donations to their programs, and programs regionally, is greater than ever.
Many people think that since the height of the pandemic is over requests for assistance have decreased. “We are seeing exactly the opposite,” said Schmitt. “Our clients have grown exponentially. The need is great.”
Chad Maxeiner, WARM’s Director of Operations, has also seen a tremendous increase in participation in the Share Bac a Pac program, a program providing healthy foods and snacks to children who are at risk of hunger on weekends and school breaks when free and reduced meals are not available. Over 6,000 students in the Westerville City School District are eligible for the free and reduced lunch program, making them eligible for the Share Bac a Pac program.
“We planned for around 550 backpack participants per week (a 22% increase from last school year), but we are seeing numbers closer to 730 per week,” said Maxeiner.
The operations team at WARM said these increases are directly related to families trying to figure out how to do more with less. “What and who do I pay?,” said Maxeiner. “People are juggling higher rent and utility bills, increased fuel costs, and basic necessities like coats, gloves and shoes. The money only goes so far.”
“We continue to look for innovative ways to address the increasing needs of our clients including working with the Mid Ohio Food Collective to leverage our buying power to purchase food at reduced prices,” said Schmitt.
“Supply and cost issues have been particularly challenging this past year for food banks everywhere including Mid Ohio Food Collective. Milk, eggs and butter were especially scarce, forcing WARM to purchase these on our own,” said Maxeiner.
Both Schmitt and Maxeiner are grateful to the Westerville community for their support of WARM. However, there is more work to be done. Schmitt encourages those who can consider a monetary or food donation to help fight hunger here in Westerville.
“We are part of a collective effort with other community organizations. Poverty is a complex issue, best served by the collective efforts of community organizations. Working together, we strive to give our community members what they need and help them on a path to self-sufficiency,” said Schmitt.
To donate to WARM or to see an up-to-date list of the most needed items, please visit www.warmwesterville.org .
